Windows
by SilverFox90
Summary: Three teenage girls find themselves in the world of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials books when they step through a "window" in the air.


Disclaimer: None of the His Dark Materials stuff is mine. Not the characters, the places, anything else…you get the idea. It's Philip Pullman's. So please don't sue!

Chapter 1: Funny Air

"What do you wanna do?"

"I don't know; what do you wanna do?"

"I don't know; what do you wanna do?"

"Does this sound familiar to anyone?" I queried from my perch on a limb of an ancient aspen tree. My friends Rachel and Ely (pronounced E-lee) were sitting with their backs to the tree, arguing about what to do. This same argument had been  
repeated at many times in many different places; this time it was in my backyard the day after school let out.

Neither of them looked up: "So?" they chimed in unison.

"Well, seeing as I have suggested no fewer than twenty different activities to do, I would think that you could agree on at least one of them." I retorted a bit lazily.

"We just like to argue ceaselessly," said Ely, a slightly crazy 15-year-old with a fetish for  
InuYasha and a stomach of steel for sweets of varied kinds.

"Is anyone else hungry?" asked Rachel, random as usual.

"Yes!" Ely screamed.

I knew my mom would never give us anything else to consume because we had just eaten an ungodly amount of snacks and sugar, but Ely and Rachel decided to try anyway and began towing me behind them (me protesting every step of the way).

"You know this is useless, don't you," I hinted not-so-subtly.

"Of course. Why do you think we're doing it?" Rachel said, not expecting an answer.

"Because we're hungry," Ely cried happily.

"How can you be hungry? You just ate 10 marshmallows and a cheese stick five minutes ago!"

"Because I just am."

If this gives you any idea about how crazy our conversations are, I'm doing a pretty good job.

We continued walking up towards my house, which took a while considering the grass was knee-high.

"What are we going to do after we finish begging your mom for more food?" Rachel asked.

"Well, I guess it's warm enough that we could go swimming in my pool."

"Are you kidding me?" Not unusual, coming from Ely. She hates cold water even though you'll see her in the middle of December wearing a spaghetti-strap tank top.

"No,"

"We could be obnoxious," said Rachel. "Or we could watch the potter puppet pals or the badgers on the computer."

"You know my mom won't let us, it's too nice outside." Even though I'm 15 years old, my mom is still way too overprotective and concerned about me.

"Dang. Then let's go to my house." 

"And how do you suppose we get there?"

"Drive?"

"Remember that I don't have a car."

Ely had been wandering around aimlessly, paying no attention to our debate and probably thinking about her new fan fiction story, which, although  
not published yet, was over 70 pages long. And, as usual, about InuYasha. Suddenly we heard her shriek.

"What, some ghost grab you?" I laughed.

"Yeah that was totally priceless. At least it will be if I find out you were shrieking about  
some mouse or something."

"No, look at this."

We weren't quite to the house, rather, we had halted just on the other side of some largish  
pine trees. When I walked over, I could see a funny patch of air.

"What the heck? Rache, come look at this. It's like someone put a picture of a street in the  
middle of the air."

"Wow. That's no picture. The people are moving. I can smell the different air, too… wait a sec, I can smell it?"

"Huh." this came from Ely. "I want to see if I can put my hand through it!"

"No Ely, come on. I don't care if you're insane most of the time, but this is too weird to not be serious."

"Hey!" she said, offended. "You're insane too!"

"Yes I know. I never said that was a bad thing. Rachel, where'd you go? Rache? Rachel?"

"You can't see me? Great! See, when I step behind the window thingy, I disappear. Not really, but it blocks your view of me and mine of you. Hmm…"

"Wait, did you say window?"

"Window, window, windows and doors!" Ely twirled around dizzily. I ignored her. So did Rachel. I mean, you get used to it. We can all be like that sometimes.

"Yeah, I mean, it just kind of popped into my head. It does look like kind of a window, doesn't it?"

"Yeah it does." I said rather distractedly. "Look, Rache, stay here for a sec, I'll be back  
in a minute." I raced inside.

"Wha…"

"Hey mom!" I banged the screen door as I entered. "We're going to be outside for a while. D'ya mind?"

"No, just be in by six for dinner." (It was eleven a.m.)

"OK. I just gotta get something first." I zoomed into the room I shared with my little  
sister and grabbed a book.

When I got back, Rachel was investigating the strange air. "Whad'ya get?"

I held up a large novel that contained the three books of a trilogy. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Now I am!"

"I'm struggling with the impossible here."

"Nah. Come on Ely, were going in."

"We are?" I asked, worried.

"Of course. Who could miss a good adventure?"

"What's going on?" asked Ely, who had wandered off once again.

With an insane grin, Rachel climbed through thin air and disappeared.

Ely and I copied the trademark smile of a madwoman and tumbled into a whole new world.


End file.
